Britain Must Not Retreat From Iraq

About the Author

British Prime
Minister Tony Blair gives evidence this week to the Iraq Study
Group[1]amid mounting calls for a withdrawal of
British forces and sagging public support for the war. An early
withdrawal of British forces would boost al-Qaeda, risk civil war
in Iraq, and severely strain the Anglo-U.S. relationship, to the
detriment of the war on terrorism and global security. While the
Prime Minister is right to reject calls for a British withdrawal
from Iraq, his decision to increase ties with Iran and Syria is a
serious strategic error that would do no more than embolden these
rogue regimes.

Mounting Opposition

British support
for a withdrawal from Iraq is mounting. In the latest
Guardian/ICM poll, 61 percent of British voters supported
the exit of British troops from Iraq by the end of the year, with
45 percent backing an immediate withdrawal. Just 30 percent of
those surveyed favored maintaining a British military presence in
Iraq beyond 2006.[2]In a YouGov poll for The Daily
Telegraph, a staggering 77 percent of Britons surveyed
expressed "not much confidence" or "no confidence at all" in the
British government's handling of the war in Iraq.[3]

In addition to
public disillusionment, Downing Street faces rising political
opposition to the Prime Minister's Iraq policy and increasingly
vocal dissent from within Britain's overstretched armed forces. The
government narrowly prevailed in a recent vote in the House of
Commons calling for an inquiry into Britain's handling of the Iraq
war that was proposed by the anti-war Scottish and Welsh
nationalist parties and backed by the Conservative Party. And Sir
Richard Dannatt, the new Chief of the General Staff of the British
Army, sent shockwaves through the British political establishment
in October, with a controversial and remarkably frank interview in
which he stated that the presence of British troops was
"exacerbating the security problems" in Iraq. Dannatt linked the
Iraq war to "Islamist violence" in Britain, criticized pre-war
planning, and expressed his hope that British troops would leave
Iraq "soon."[4]

The Consequences of
Early Withdrawal

The Prime Minister
is right to reject pressure for an immediate withdrawal. In a major
speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet in the City of London on
November 13, he presented a powerful defense of the British
commitment to the Iraqi people.[5]Blair also challenged the
fashionable and increasingly pervasive anti-Americanism in Britain,
describing it as "the surest route to the destruction of our
national interest" and reminding his audience of the need "to keep
our partnership with America strong."[6]

An early
withdrawal of the 7,200 British forces from Iraq would be a huge
mistake. A British pullout would shatter the international
coalition, greatly weaken America's position in the center and
north of the country, strengthen the insurgency, embolden al-Qaeda,
and allow Iran-backed militia groups to increase their influence in
the Shia-dominated south. In addition to threatening Iraq's future,
a pullout would also damage the Anglo-U.S. alliance that has led
the war on terrorism.

A British pullout
from Iraq would lead to specific consequences:

A Propaganda Victory for Al-Qaeda and its Allies: Al-Qaeda
would portray a pullout as a victory. A pullout would embolden
al-Qaeda's terrorist network in Iraq and provide a massive boost to
the insurgency. Al-Qaeda would certainly link any withdrawal to the
July 7, 2005, London bombings, for which it has claimed
responsibility, and claim that the attacks forced a change in
British policy. This would set a dangerous precedent and greatly
increase the likelihood of future terrorist atrocities on European
soil.

Civil War, Ethnic Cleansing, and a Humanitarian Crisis: The
withdrawal of British and other Western forces would pave the way
for a civil war between Sunni and Shia groups, with bloodshed on a
far greater scale than witnessed so far. Hundreds of thousands,
even millions, of people could be displaced by acts of ethnic
cleansing, leading to a huge humanitarian crisis.

The Boosting of Iranian Influence. Iran would be a
geostrategic beneficiary of any British pullout from
Shiite-dominated southern Iraq, where it already wields great
political influence. A British withdrawal from Basra and its
southern bases would create a power vacuum that dozens of
Iranian-backed militia groups are ready to exploit-among them,
Moqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army, the Badr Brigades, and the Mujahidin for
Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

A Strained Special Relationship. A unilateral withdrawal by
Britain would have damaging implications for the future of the
Anglo-U.S. special relationship, the most powerful military and
political alliance in modern history. It would weaken the ties that
bind the two nations and create a gulf in trust, greatly reducing
the impetus for future joint U.S.-British operations.
Anglo-American leadership has been the engine of the global war on
terror, and a division between the two allies would undermine the
West's ability to combat al-Qaeda and state sponsors of
terror.

The Undermining of British Power. Retreat is not a word that
figures prominently in British military vocabulary, and Britain has
an unrivalled record of military success over the past 300 years.
An early British withdrawal, even for political and strategic,
rather than military, reasons, would prove damaging to Britain's
prestige and standing and force a negative revaluation of Britain's
role in the world. It would echo the Suez crisis of 1956, which
split America from Britain and undermined British confidence for a
generation. A withdrawal would dramatically weaken Britain's
resurgence as a world power and reduce its assertiveness on the
international stage.

The Perils of
Engagement with Iran and Syria

While the Prime
Minister staunchly defended the principle of standing shoulder to
shoulder with the United States in Iraq, he also sought to create
some distance with the White House in his approach toward rogue
states such as Iran and Syria. The Prime Minister's Iran gambit is
aimed at influencing the thinking of the Baker-Hamilton Commission
on Iraq and at placating domestic critics who claim that he
slavishly follows Washington's agenda, rather than influences
it.

In his Lord
Mayor's address, Blair advocated a possible "new partnership" with
the Iranians:

Offer Iran a
clear strategic choice: they help the Middle East Peace Process not
hinder it; they stop supporting terrorism in Lebanon or Iraq; and
they abide by, not flout, their international obligations. In that
case, a new partnership is possible. Or alternatively, they face
the consequences of not doing so: isolation.[7]

This call for U.S.
and British engagement with Tehran to find a solution to the
violence in Iraq is naïve and risky, and the Bush
Administration should reject it.

Iran remains the
world's biggest state sponsor of international terrorism and the
greatest threat to world peace, alongside North Korea. The Iranian
regime is reportedly building close ties with al-Qaeda's leadership
and training senior al-Qaeda operatives in Tehran in an effort to
build a strategic terror alliance against the West.[8]

Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is pressing forward with plans for a nuclear
weapons program and continues to maintain that Israel should be
"wiped off the map." Iran is also a huge part of the problem in
Iraq, with Iranian-backed Shia militias actively engaged in a war
against British forces in the south of the country. Blair's
strategy of reaching out to Iran follows the European Union's
fruitless policy of "constructive engagement" with Iran over its
nuclear ambitions and is similarly likely to embolden rather than
weaken Iran as a destructive force on the world stage.

Blair's call for a
new approach to Tehran mirrors the British government's growing
engagement with Syria, another world leader in facilitating
terrorism. In late October, Blair sent his most senior foreign
policy adviser, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, to Damascus in a "secret
diplomatic initiative" to meet with President Bashar al-Assad and
discuss Iraq, Lebanon, and Israel.[9]The visit was London's
highest-level contact with Syria since the Iraq war and was a
highly controversial move, coming at a time when Syria is expanding
its ties with Tehran, increasing its political and military support
for Hamas and Hezbollah, and providing assistance to Sunni
insurgent groups inside Iraq. The rapprochement with Damascus also
took place against the background of the ongoing United Nations
investigation into Syria's role in the 2005 assassination of
Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.[10]

Conclusion

The British
government's decision to engage with Iran and Syria is a serious
strategic error in judgment that is likely to exacerbate the
situation in Iraq rather than improve it. It risks dividing the
Anglo-American alliance and strengthening the hands of rogue
regimes that have a vested interest in weakening the partnership
between Washington and London on the world stage.

The U.S. and
Britain must remain united in their determination to win the war in
Iraq, despite inevitable disagreements over strategy. An early
withdrawal of British or American troops would have catastrophic
implications for the future of Iraq and be seen by many Iraqis as a
betrayal of trust. By liberating Iraq and removing one the most
brutal regimes of modern times, Britain and the United States made
a powerful commitment to the future of the Iraqi people that must
be honored. There should be no major pullout of Allied forces from
the country until key military objectives have been met and Iraq is
stable and secure.

The U.S. and the
UK share a fundamental national interest in staying in Iraq and
defeating the insurgency. The Middle East would view an early
withdrawal as a humiliating defeat for the West and an emphatic
victory for those who represent al-Qaeda in Iraq. A pullout would
be an unparalleled propaganda success for a barbaric terror
organization that has murdered thousands of Iraqi men, women, and
children.

Iraq today is the
central battleground in the global war against terrorism and,
together with Afghanistan, is the only place in the world where
American and British troops can actively engage al-Qaeda and its
allies in active combat. Iraq tests the West's resolve to confront
and ultimately defeat the al-Qaeda threat, and this epic
confrontation must be fought and won by U.S., British, and Iraqi
forces.

Nile Gardiner, Ph.D.,
is the Bernard and Barbara Lomas Fellow in and Director of the
Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, a division of the Kathryn and
Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The
Heritage Foundation. Peter Cuthbertson assisted with research for
this paper.

[1] The
Iraq Study Group is chaired by former Secretary of State James A.
Baker III and former Congressman Lee H. Hamilton and operates under
the auspices of the United States Institute for Peace.

[2] "Iraq Voters Want British Troops Home by
End of Year," The Guardian, October 24, 2006.

[4] See
"Fighting for His Army," The Sunday Telegraph, October 15,
2006; "In the Line of Fire," Sunday Times, October 15, 2006;
"Army Chief Called in to Explain 'Quit Iraq' Appeal," The
Times, October 13, 2006.

[6] It
should though be noted that Blair equated anti-Americanism in
Britain with Euroscepticism, a false and misleading analogy. Most
British opposition to further political integration in Europe is
firmly embedded within a pro-Atlanticist worldview. It is striking
that much of the anti-Americanism in today's Conservative Party,
for example, is advanced by politicians with a pro-European
agenda.

[10] The Syrian government has hired British
law firm Matrix Chambers, whose lawyers include Cherie Blair, to
advise it on the inquiry into Hariri's assassination. See "Syria
Hires British Law Firm for Hariri Assassination Inquiry," The
Guardian, November 4, 2006.